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Saint Lloris, Savior of Les Bleus

Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHugo Lloris, in yellow, has earned the No. 1 spot in goal for France and will be called on to backstop a suspect team in South Africa.

The lasting image from France’s anemic, controversial, but ultimately successful campaign to qualify for the 2010 World Cup will be the un-penalized handball by Thierry Henry that helped Les Bleus slip by Ireland in a two-match playoff last November.

What has been forgotten is that one of the main reasons the lackluster French team was even in a position for that infamous play to matter was the dominant play of Hugo Lloris, France’s 23-year-old goalkeeper.

Time after time in the two-game series against Ireland — and during the entire qualifying campaign — Lloris bailed out his teammates with key saves in high-pressure moments.

The young keeper picked a perfect time to blossom. While helping France to book a ticket for South Africa, Lloris, who has just nine international caps, almost certainly claimed a place for himself in Coach Raymond Domenech’s starting eleven this summer.

“Lloris is a phenomenon,” said former France keeper Gregory Coupet in an interview last November after France won the first game of the playoff, 1-0. Coupet told the radio station RMC at the time that Lloris should be installed as the permanent starter: “Because of what he did last weekend, the choice has to be made in his favor.”

Lloris’s reputation has swelled at a steady rate since he made his debut as an 18-year-old for Nice in 2005, and he appears to be peaking at an unusually early age for a goalkeeper.

In 2008, he transferred to Lyon for a reported $12 million fee. At the end of the 2008-09 season, his fellow players voted him as the French league’s top keeper, and last December, he finished third behind Nicolas Anelka and Yoann Gourcuff in France Football magazine’s player of the year voting.

His strong performances against Liverpool in the group stage of the Champions League last season (from which Lyon emerged and Liverpool did not) set off the first round of effusive praise for Lloris. He stymied Liverpool’s attackers one after another, earning a 2-1 victory in the teams’ first match and a 1-1 tie in the second game.

Arsene Wenger, the manager of Arsenal and a fellow Frenchman, said at the time that Lloris was one of the best keepers the country has had in some time: “A fantastic keeper who will be a fantastic keeper in the future,” Wenger said, according to the Daily Mail.

“Hugo just keeps on getting better,” said his Lyon teammate Ederson, who referred to Lloris as Super Hugo in an interview with Uefa.com. “I’m happy to be playing alongside somebody like that because not only is he a top goalkeeper but he is also a humble, nice person.”

Lloris precociousness, skill and, to some extent, his appearance have earned him comparisons to the Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas, who plays for Real Madrid.

After the qualification playoff against Ireland, Lloris was dubbed by some headline writers as Saint Lloris, a reference to Casillias, whose nickname is San Casillas.

“Hugo is as strong as Iker Casillas,” said Cris, the Lyon central defender, last month. “He could become even better.”

The two keepers have faced each other three times in the last month.

Their clubs met for the first leg of a Champions League round-of-16 match-up on Feb. 16 in France. Lyon prevailed in that game, 1-0.

On March 3, France and Spain played a friendly in Paris. This time, Casillas was the one who earned a shutout, as Spain won, 2-0, to get its first victory in France since 1968.

The keepers met for the third time last Wednesday in Madrid for the second leg of their Champions League series.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s 6th minute goal, rocketed between the legs of Lloris, who was caught somewhat flat-footed, which tied the series score at 1-1. But Lloris and the Lyon defense went on to withstand an offensive onslaught from Madrid, and in the 75th minute, Miralem Pjanic stole a goal to give Lyon the 2-1 aggregate win.

Now, in addition to helping anchor an unsteady French team as it wobbles into the World Cup, add the Champions League quarterfinal to the unflappable 23-year-old’s to-do list.

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Goal, The New York Times soccer blog, will report on news and features from the world of soccer and around the Web. Times editors and reporters will follow international tournaments and provide analysis of games. There will be interviews with players, coaches and notable soccer fans, as well as a weekly blog column by Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore. Readers can discuss Major League Soccer, foreign leagues and other issues with fellow soccer fans.